Residency Blog Entry from Student Cricket Greer

In my undergraduate work at Goddard, we had a rich movement community. At each residency, we did Authentic Movement work with a professor who uses it in her private practice. I have loved the group work that I have done with Authentic Movement (AM) and have engaged in several groups over the years. I am presently not involved in expressive arts beyond my music job, so I wanted to revisit this work and bring this rich modality into the community here in the context of a workshop.

I led an AM workshop several residencies ago. We broke into pairs and then shared within the larger group using a traditional AM format of listening and sharing only our own experience of working with our partner. But I have wanted to use the process differently. I took a several-day workshop at Saybrook University in San Francisco that involved using this type of movement and art material for therapeutic work. I also have worked with a therapist in the last year and a half who uses art with me, and I find it a rich experience that gets to the heart of issues quickly. So I decided to share this work with the Goddard community in a workshop that uses AM in a therapeutic context.

In the workshop, we will divide into pairs. One person is the mover, the other is the witness who holds space for the mover. After moving, both the witness and mover create visual art with pastels and can write if desired. Then the witness helps the mover verbally explore the experience in a therapeutic way. After that, we will come together as a group to discuss the process before changing roles with our partners.

I would like to have group discussion after completing each full segment - movement, art, therapy - in order to focus on therapeutic technique/approaches. I hope that the participants not only gain a sense of how to use art in their therapy practices, but will also find their own explorations of movement, art, and therapeutic work a fulfilling experience.